A seat reserved for Tobias Lütke

RC/PL/2026/2

Tobias Lütke
Chief Executive Officer
Shopify

Subject: Transmission of the Platform Fairness Standard

Dear Mr. Lütke:

1.I write as Advisory Council Chair of Reseated Councils, the Founders Assembly of small-business owners. I transmit, for your consideration, the Platform Fairness Standard adopted by the Assembly on 13 August 2026 as RC/PL/RES/2026/1. The resolution is the result of an evidence review, a public consultation and a ballot of Assembly members. This letter invites Shopify to adopt the Standard as a company-wide operational commitment for the platforms it operates and that small businesses use.

2.Reseated was launched on 10 February 2026. It is a global assembly organized in seven councils, and is a nonprofit. Its mandate is to collect and test reports about recurring conditions affecting small businesses, develop practical proposals through public consultation, and seek voluntary adoption by the organizations with the ability to address those conditions. Reseated does not determine individual disputes, and the Platform Council does not speak for any one member’s business. Members are anonymous unless they choose to occupy a public seat.

3.The scale of the constituency is substantial. The United Nations estimates that micro, small and medium-sized enterprises account for about 90 per cent of businesses, 60 to 70 per cent of employment and approximately half of global gross domestic product.¹ The

International Labour Organization estimates that MSMEs provide about 70 per cent of employment worldwide and that about 80 per cent operate in the informal economy.² These estimates use different measures, but both underline why rules governing access to customers, earnings and business accounts matter to a broad range of enterprises.

The evidence before the Assembly

4.As at 20 August 2026, Reseated had 1,366 members in 49 countries and had received 4,065 reports from 50 countries. The Platform Council had 410 members in 48 countries and had received 1,764 reports from 50 countries. The median amount reported at stake was approximately US$4,107. Reports included 990 situations involving an account suspension and 774 involving funds held. These categories describe reports received; they should not be added together or treated as mutually exclusive. They also do not establish that every report concerns the same platform, cause or outcome.

5.The evidence is international in reach, rather than confined to one national setting. Among the countries with the most Platform Council reports were the United States (210), Brazil (101) and Mexico (95) in the Americas; Germany (101), Spain (88), the United Kingdom (82) and France (81) in Europe; and the Philippines (91) in Asia-Pacific. The figures are country-level counts supplied by members, not estimates of national incidence. They demonstrate that the reported situations have arisen across regions and legal environments, while avoiding an unsupported claim that the reports form a representative survey of every market.

6.The reports describe a recurring practical concern: a small business can find that its account, listing or access to money is restricted, or that fees change, without receiving information sufficient to understand what happened, respond in time, or plan its cash flow. The consequences may be acute for a small enterprise whose sales, customer access or working capital depend on a platform. The Assembly’s concern is with the process surrounding such decisions. It does not presume that a platform’s decision is wrong, that every restriction is avoidable, or that every reported experience has the same explanation.

7.The Platform Council subjected PL-001 to the Assembly’s five-part pattern test: Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread and Corroboration. The Council certified that all five tests were met on 12 May 2026 in RC/PL/2026/N.2. The test asks whether reports recur at meaningful scale and over time, whether they describe a sufficiently consistent condition, whether the condition appears across places or contexts, and whether accounts are

corroborated. It is a disciplined basis for proposing a general remedy; it is not a finding against a named company and does not replace a company’s own investigation of an individual case.

8.The draft Standard was opened for public consultation from 2 June to 2 July. Reseated received 487 comments. The Platform Council revised the draft after consultation, and the Assembly adopted the resulting Standard on 13 August by 86.4 per cent of votes cast, with 58 per cent turnout. The adopted text, rather than an earlier draft, is the proposal transmitted here.

What the Standard asks

9.The Standard establishes a clear procedural baseline before a platform takes a covered action affecting a business user. It calls for written notice, a specific reason, review by a person, and a time limit on any payout hold. It applies to account suspension, listing removal, payout holds and fee changes, and calls for the same protections in every country in which the platform operates. The purpose is not to remove legitimate enforcement or commercial discretion. It is to make consequential decisions understandable, reviewable and time-bounded for the business affected.

10.The operative requests are:

1. Before suspending a business account or removing a business listing, provide written notice identifying the action and a specific reason for it.
2. Before placing a hold on a payout, provide written notice and a specific reason, and state the time limit applicable to the hold.
3. Before changing fees applicable to a business user, provide written notice and a specific explanation of the change.
4. Provide a route for review by a person, rather than leaving the affected business with only an automated decision or an unreviewable process.
5. Apply these protections consistently in every country in which the platform operates, subject to any stronger protection required by local law.
6. Make the process usable in practice: a business should be able to understand the notice, identify the action being challenged, and submit relevant information for review.

11.These requests are framed as safeguards, not as a prescribed technical design. They do not require disclosure of sensitive security systems, confidential information about another user, or material whose release would create a concrete risk of abuse. They do require enough explanation to tell the business what action has been taken and why, and enough access to human review to allow a meaningful correction where the decision rests on error or incomplete information. The Standard does not set a universal number of days for all payout holds; it calls for a stated time limit rather than an indefinite hold.

Relationship to existing frameworks

12.The Standard is designed to align with established regulatory approaches where they apply, while offering a consistent internal baseline across jurisdictions. In the European Union, the Platform-to-Business Regulation requires providers, when restricting or suspending a business user, to provide a statement of reasons. It also addresses notice before termination of the whole service, including a minimum 30-day period in the circumstances covered by Article 4.³ The Standard’s notice and reason requirements are consistent with the direction of that framework. Its call for a person to review a decision and for a time limit on payout holds is stated as an Assembly-wide practice proposal; this letter does not suggest that every element is separately required by that Regulation.

13.Article 17 of the European Union’s Digital Services Act requires covered providers to give affected recipients a clear and specific statement of reasons for specified restrictions, including information about whether automated means were used in the decision. The Commission’s DSA Transparency Database provides public access to statements of reasons submitted under the Act.⁴ The Standard’s emphasis on a specific explanation and meaningful review is compatible with this transparency-oriented approach. It does not substitute for the statutory duties that apply to particular services, nor does it assert that the same DSA duties apply to every Shopify service or every business relationship.

14.Japan’s Act on Improving Transparency and Fairness of Specified Digital Platforms requires designated providers to disclose matters including conditions concerning withholding payments, within the scope of the Act and its designation framework.⁵ The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry describes the Act’s application to designated digital platforms and its transparency framework.⁶ Where the Act applies, the Standard’s call for notice, reasons and a time limit on payout holds is a practical complement to transparent payment

conditions. This letter makes no claim about whether a particular Shopify service is designated under Japanese law, or about Shopify’s specific practices in Japan.

15.More generally, a company that serves business users in multiple jurisdictions must work across different legal requirements and different customer circumstances. A global baseline can reduce avoidable differences in the protections a small business experiences from one country to another, while allowing local law to provide stronger or more specific rights. The Standard is intended to be a floor for operational fairness, not a ceiling on legal obligations and not a replacement for compliance advice.

Requests to Shopify

16.I respectfully ask Shopify to:

1. Review the adopted Platform Fairness Standard and identify the teams responsible for account decisions, listing decisions, payouts, fees and business-user support.
2. Consider adopting the Standard across the relevant services used by small businesses, including a consistent process for written notice, specific reasons, human review and time-limited payout holds.
3. Identify any provisions that Shopify considers impracticable or that require clarification, and provide a reasoned response so the Assembly can consider it openly.
4. If Shopify is prepared to adopt the Standard, return a signed copy or other written confirmation from an authorized representative indicating the commitment being made and its scope.
5. If implementation will take place in stages, state the intended scope and timetable in the response. Reseated will record the commitment as made, while describing any stated limits or conditions accurately.

17.I also offer to share anonymized Platform Council data and supporting material relevant to the pattern review. Any sharing would exclude members’ names and business names and would be arranged so that individual members are not identified. Reseated can discuss the definitions used for the report categories, the limits of the dataset, and ways to examine the evidence without treating member reports as a substitute for Shopify’s own operational data. The offer is for an evidence-based discussion, not a demand for access to confidential company information.

The reserved seat and public record

18.A CEO seat has been reserved for Shopify in the Platform Council’s adoption process. The seat is an invitation to engage with the Standard at the level where company-wide commitments can be made. It is not a claim that the CEO personally handles individual cases, and it does not imply that the company has accepted the Standard merely by receiving this letter.

19.Signing means that an authorized company representative confirms, in writing, that the company adopts the Standard, with any scope or implementation conditions clearly stated. Reseated will record the seat against the published stages used for all CEO seats: Proposed, Letter sent, Delivered, Replied, Signed, or Empty chair. A status records the procedural position; it is not a judgment about a company’s motives, its legal compliance, or the merits of a particular report. For this letter, the record as of 20 August 2026 is: Letter sent. Delivery and any subsequent response or signature will be recorded only when confirmed.

20.Any reply from Shopify will be published in full, subject to the removal of personal information or other material that cannot appropriately be made public. Reseated will not characterize a reply as an endorsement unless it says so, and will not describe silence as agreement. If Shopify chooses not to sign, the seat will be shown neutrally as unfilled; the record will distinguish that status from whether a letter was sent, delivered or answered.

21.The Standard is an invitation to make basic procedural protections dependable wherever small businesses use a platform. Clear notice can help a business understand what it must address. A specific reason can make correction possible. Human review can provide a route for cases in which relevant facts were missed. A stated limit on a payout hold can give the business a point at which it can seek an update and plan. Applying these safeguards consistently can make the process more intelligible without presuming the outcome of any individual decision.

Sources

1. The Platform Fairness Standard, RC/PL/RES/2026/1, adopted 13 August 2026.
2. Platform Council certification of the pattern test, RC/PL/2026/N.2, 12 May 2026.

Notes and sources

Sources

1. United Nations, Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day
2. International Labour Organization, Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
3. Regulation (EU) 2019/1150, Article 4
4. European Commission, DSA Transparency Database: Questions and Answers
5. Japan, Act on Improving Transparency and Fairness of Specified Digital Platforms
6. Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Digital Platforms